The senate then having divided, who shall choose? Ask the girls: for if
she that divided must have chosen also, it had been little worse for
the other in case she had not divided at all, but kept the whole cake to
herself, in regard that being to choose, too, she divided accordingly.
Wherefore if the senate have any further power than to divide, the
commonwealth can never be equal. But in a commonwealth consisting of
a single council, there is no other to choose than that which divided;
whence it is, that such a council fails not to scramble--that is, to
be factious, there being no other dividing of the cake in that case but
among themselves.
Nor is there any remedy but to have another council to choose. The
wisdom of the few may be the light of mankind; but the interest of
the few is not the profit of mankind nor of a commonwealth. Wherefore,
seeing we have granted interest to be reason, they must not choose lest
it put out their light. But as the council dividing consists of the
wisdom of the commonwealth, so the assembly or council choosing should
consist of the interest of the commonwealth: as the wisdom of the
commonwealth is in the aristocracy, so the interest of the commonwealth
is in the whole body of the people. And whereas this, in case the
commonwealth consist of a whole nation, is too unwieldy a body to be
assembled, this council is to consist of such a representative as may be
equal, and so constituted, as can never contract any other interest
than that of the whole people; the manner whereof, being such as is best
shown by exemplification, I remit to the model. But in the present case,
the six dividing, and the fourteen choosing, must of necessity take in
the whole interest of the twenty.
Dividing and choosing, in the language of a commonwealth, is debating
and resolving; and whatsoever, upon debate of the senate, is proposed
to the people, and resolved by them, is enacted by the authority of the
fathers, and by the power of the people, which concurring, make a law.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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